In the Loop: October 5, 2006 Archive

Why bother to vote? Why stick your neck out by running for office against a "safe" incumbent? Why give money to a political candidate? Why do those people in political ads sound like they're trying to scare us? Why is it just a little unsettling to see a mirror of ourselves in a race for student council?

These questions and more are on the agenda for the next Loop. Here are the bare details:

(The other day we had a couple of great comments on the web site from Eric Tsai, a member of the Loop network. I thought we'd break them out into a separate post -- food for thought. Thanks Eric!)

With the upcoming republican national convention and the emphasis on Minnesota's politically active atmosphere, maybe it would be enlightening to examine how well our democracy works - specifically, how well voting works.

Are reasonable adults really capable of selecting the "best" leader? I really doubt our ability to distinguish between a good, ok, or bad candidate. There's lot of obvious arguments. For example, does the art of marketing or prejudice render voting a broken system? And there's other surface arguments too. For example, our divorce rate is 50%, how well are we really able to judge the aptness of another person for a position.